Most Influential Movies Of All Time
by weedarino | created - 15 Apr 2021 | updated - 27 Apr 2021 | PublicMovies that are great. Not my Favorite necessarily but movies that have substance and are important to the history of Cinema
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1. Breathless (1960)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama
A small-time crook, hunted by the authorities for a car theft and the murder a police officer, attempts to persuade a hip American journalism student to run away with him to Italy.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Van Doude, Jean-Luc Godard
Votes: 87,823 | Gross: $0.34M
Quick shots, jump cuts, anti-heroes, romanticizing violence, and the French New Wave were formed by the success of this film. This film brought the medium down from the pedestal of the Hollywood studio into the hands of inspiring creatives that would go on to shape modern Hollywood.
2. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 465,516 | Gross: $1.59M
Narrative Storytelling in films was forever changed and inspired by this film.
3. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 658,523 | Gross: $260.00M
This Blockbuster was the first of it's kind. The summertime blockbuster owes everything to this movie.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 718,445 | Gross: $56.95M
The quintessential sci-fi film that pulled the genre out of the depths of campy B-films into a high art.
5. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness
Votes: 1,447,797 | Gross: $322.74M
Combining elements of Jaws and 2001; this movie introduced toys and merchandise to films.
6. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
R | 111 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Votes: 120,506
The movie that brought the French new wave of films over to America and effectively ended "old Hollywood"
7. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
TV-PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War
The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
Votes: 26,314 | Gross: $10.00M
For better or for worse Griffith showed the scope that movies can reach.
8. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,008,467 | Gross: $134.97M
The film that justified the existence of "new Hollywood" and gave it an extra 20 years of its lifespan.
9. Pulp Fiction (1994)
R | 154 min | Crime, Drama
The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis
Votes: 2,215,612 | Gross: $107.93M
There's something gestalt about this film; and it's why audiences went in droves to see it. This indie masterpiece would go on to kick-start a wave of imitations and action comedies that just couldn't "hear the music" of Tarantino's purism.
10. Modern Times (1936)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford
Votes: 259,112 | Gross: $0.16M
The film that made Chaplin a celebrity. Perhaps the first time film reached out to help people.
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